


Impatience is a Virtue

by KimliPan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Established Relationship, Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KimliPan/pseuds/KimliPan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki's left Tony on Earth for whatever reason, and Tony gets bored of waiting. He finds his own way out in space to track him down and win him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impatience is a Virtue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chaperoned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaperoned/gifts).



> Just a ficlet idly inspired by conversations I've had with [chaperoned](http://chaperoned.tumblr.com/). No plot, just dumb boys. Enjoy!

It was to prove Loki wrong that Tony figured it out fast enough. By all means, it should have taken at least a few years to learn the mechanics of high-speed space travel, but the driving need to prove that Earth was no backwater bumfuck kicked his ass in gear and started him on his chase.

He would be no small-pond big fish. Not to Loki, anyhow. And to do that, he had to learn to make his own way, not steal or borrow it from someone else. He had to prove he could do it. And then he had to find him, had to show him, _this is what you’re missing._

But Loki seemed to be unimpressed. He took in a deep breath through his nose, expression (thinly veiled behind pleasant surprise) pinched and ugly. 

“What are you doing here, Stark?”

That was his only question, it seemed. He crossed his arms over his stomach, stood up straighter and looked down his nose at the shorter man before him. If Loki thought Tony’s years of being tolerated -- barely humored, even, if he was honest -- wouldn’t let him see through badly feigned pleasantries (or return them, for that matter) then perhaps Tony was better off leaving Loki alone after all. Though, and Tony knew this for a fact, he wasn’t wrong.

They were separated by a small flow of market-goers (a much safer phrasing, he thought, than ‘people’), within whom even Loki looked alien. He staved his curiosity at their forms, however, and focused his attention back on Loki with a quick tug of his shades down the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, you know me,“ Tony offered in exchange. “Just in the area, thought I’d swing by. Nice galaxy, by the way. Stars. Sky. Suns. Interesting, I like it.” 

“Yes,” Loki snapped, the reserved patience dwindling into the childish fits Tony was more accustomed to. He approached Tony, grabbed him by the upper arm while muttering about, “unique and stunning, all that, truly, now _get over here_ ,” as he dragged him out of view. 

“Have a deathwish, do you?” The reserve was back again, though mangled by Loki’s frequent glances over Tony’s shoulder and a quick look over his own.

“Something like.” Tony tugged his arm from Loki’s grip and straightened the sleeve of his blazer, while smugness tugged his mouth to a curve. “Miss you too, honeybear,” he said, and Loki huffed.

“Whatever you’re here for, get it and go,” he said, picking something off Tony’s jacket -- priming his hair, too, as if he were a show dog, and Tony admitted to himself he’d missed this attention -- then, with an edge of reluctance tense in an attempt at nonchalance, “unless you’re here for Gamora, then I advise only the latter.” 

A small, humored “hm!” escaped Tony as he shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heel to take Loki’s eyes (dragging; sallow) into notice. 

“What the hell would I want with her?” 

The hands that had moved to Tony’s shoulders, brushing and straightening out the finer details of his suit, pulled back as Loki took a step away.

“Oh.” He peered into the crowd, waved a dismissive hand off and smiled in the weak and thin way he always did when he didn’t care enough to cover a lie. “No reason, of course. Just a thought.” Tony chose not to care about it. “Take care,” he said, with a condescending pat to Tony’s chest, and Tony all but rolled his eyes, grabbing Loki’s wrist as Loki tried to turn and walk away.

“I’m here for _you_ , dipshit-”

“Stark-”

“Are we done with the small talk now? ‘Cause I’m bored with it. Talk for real?”

“Not _now_.”

“Then later?”

Silence, save for the bustling and the merchants and overhead transport. Possibly what was also a bird or something like it, if Tony cared enough to glance up and find out.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Tony pressed, not altogether un-childish in the urgency with which he stretched that last syllable. “I mastered quantum mechanics to get here. I deserve at least _some_ praise, backhanded or not, you choose.”

If Tony thought Loki’s face was ‘pinched and ugly’ before, it was nothing compared to the look he gave him now. He pulled his wrist from Tony’s grip and glared at him, glancing once more into the crowd, and Tony wasn’t sure if he was watching for threats or looking for an out, though he didn’t entirely rule out that both could be found in the same thing.

“I’m not here to be your babysitter-”

“Kay. Don’t want one. Go on.”

“I can’t be doing my _very important_ work and watching out for you because you seem to think you’re in the same league as me.”

“Interesting point of view, Fido.” Rubbing his hands together, Tony quirked a brow and nodded as if to a child and went on, “I hear you, really, I do, but you’re full of shit and I miss you, so.” A tight-lipped smile, a go at mirroring Loki’s. “Stuck with me. Just how it goes.”

If Tony had to guess at Loki’s feelings on that, he would use the word _pleased_. If he wanted to downplay it, he might manage that Loki was _at least emotionally sated_ , and if he wanted to be optimistic, he might even call the tiny pull at the kiss of his lips _touched_. Whatever it was, though, Tony felt a warm swelling in his chest that told him he said the right thing, even as Loki’s brows descended and he offered little pleasure in the sudden terseness of his lips.

“Well. I can afford to loan you a _small_ distraction,” he said in an airy voice, and Tony felt the victory in it. He’d won Loki over. “Not now.” He gave a tight smile and waved to someone who was apparently behind Tony, and he wondered, without bothering to look and confirm it, if Loki was making up the distraction, or if there was really someone there. “I’ll find you tonight.”

“Yeah?” He rocked onto his toes and shoved his hands back in his pockets. “Kiss before you go? For old time’s sake.”

With a put-upon scowl, Loki looked at Tony for a long moment (considering? withholding? denying?) before dragging his finger along the underside of Tony’s jaw and leaning in to give him a slow, chaste kiss. It was nice, warm, to feel that again, the thin, firm lips of the man he’d grown this needy, unending affection for. Though, it wasn’t earth-shattering enough to stop him from being smug about it.

“Go find your girlfriend,” he said, tilting his head back. “I can wait.”

“Evidently, you can’t,” Loki commented idly.

Well, Tony thought. He wasn’t wrong.


End file.
